


Ain't No Such Thing as Free Will, Darling

by karmicpunishment



Series: Before the Fall [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Abandonment, Betrayal, Deities, Drowning, Fate & Destiny, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, Jschlatt-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Kinda, Platonic Soulmates, Prequel but can stand alone, Psychological Trauma, Supernatural Elements, Superpowers, The Sky Gods are fucked up man, Wilbur Soot-centric, death and respawn mechanics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:35:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27632155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karmicpunishment/pseuds/karmicpunishment
Summary: Wilbur didn't remember a start. He just was and always had been.Schlatt knew nothing but the boy by his side.---------In which the Sky Gods test their new favorite playthings
Relationships: Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot
Series: Before the Fall [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020378
Comments: 42
Kudos: 154





	1. And Still the Water Rises

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to a story collection I'm working on with nic_takes_Ls (nic_jay), I'm really excited to get to write more for both that story idea and this fandom in general!
> 
> this story will be short with multiple chapters, probably around 4-5, and I hope to finish it by mid-December :-)
> 
> enjoy!

The story books they gave him always started at the beginning. There was a start, a reason, a truth to the existence of the main character. A birth, a spell, a quest, there was always something to kick it off.

Wilbur didn’t remember a start. He just was and always had been. Limbs the same length, voice the same cadence with all his facilities in check. He knew how to walk and talk and sing and sing and sing and sing. He knew where the sun went at night and why grass grew and how things stayed alive and how to stop them from staying that way. All these things he knew, always had, and one more thing he knew was that he was never alone. His first blink was accompanied by its twin beside him, breathing in time. The boy born aside him knew all that he did as well. If there was one thing Wilbur knew for sure it was Schlatt. They were twin thoughts, matching hearts, connected souls. They had appeared here together, no names, no idea of what to do, only each other, a small house, and some story books in a chest. They named each other, the names Wilbur and Schlatt coming from the tip of their tongues like they’d known them all along.

They knew a lot and even more things they learned. They learned how to grow food out of nothing, how to smelt steel, how to forge a sword, how to chop down a tree. They learned that the night was dangerous. They learned that the voices in the wind weren’t always kind. They learned not to take off the bands on their wrists. They learned that dying hurt. They learned that respawning hurt worse. They learned that when their chains grew hot against their skin, they shouldn’t trust their own thoughts. Soon a year had gone by, not that they had a way to tell the time other than the sunrise in the morning and the moon peeking out at night. A year to the day of the awakening something changed in their world. The soft breeze, with its whispers of the closest thing to love they knew and its soothing touch for the painful days was gone, only harsh winds with taunting whispers and harsh shoves remained. But the worst thing to come from the new year was the rain. It came down in buckets every few days like clockwork. It stung the skin and flooded the Earth and drowned all in its path. They had learned a lot but not about this. 

  
One thing they didn’t know was why? Why were they here, in this nearly empty world, only each other and the occasional mind shattering voice from the sky for company. Wilbur didn’t care much for whys, too busy reading the story books They left them and trying to fill an empty world with music, but he knew Schlatt cared. Too much in his opinion. Why question it? Schlatt loved to question everything. He knew how things worked, but wanted to know why. He wanted to know why they were brought here. He wanted to know “why is the water rising, Wilbur?”, like it mattered. Wilbur knew. He was the cause after all. He could feel the tug in his stomach each time the water rose, the heavy hands on his shoulders as he did, the incomprehensible voices whispering praise in his ears as the water swelled and raged and swallowed all in its inevitable path. Wilbur knew, but he did not share. A test, the voices told him, though he wasn’t quite sure which one of them it was for.

  
Still the water levels rose, and rose, and rose and soon Wilbur knew they’d have to leave their home. All they’d known in the unending days in this lonely land. Their home, built by their own two hands, no more than a small shack with one simple window and only stove to keep it warm. Wilbur cared a little for the house, there was a little tug at his heart at the idea of leaving, but the roaring of the waves in his ears far out powered it. He cared far more about Schlatt. Schlatt had always been more… well sentimental wasn’t the right word, but he’d always been far less willing to leave things behind. When he first broached the subject, the water had been hungrily lapping at the shores far below, a distant but present threat. He posed the question and Schlatt deflected.

The Water Rose.

  
The second time he asked, the water had swallowed up the valley floor. Schlatt obfuscated.

The Water Rose.

The third time the query crossed his lips, the water had clawed its way up the tree line. Schlatt dodged the question.

The Water Rose.

The fourth time he opened the idea, the water had winded its way into the cave systems and tunnels. Schlatt ignored it. Wilbur stopped asking.

The Water Rose.

The water had risen to the bottom of the cliff they were on. Wilbur started packing.

The Water Rose.

Wilbur packed up his books, and his guitar. Schlatt closed off his side of the house.

The Water Rose.

Wilbur pleaded. Schlatt listened.

The Water Rose.

Schlatt agreed. Wilbur smiled.

The Water Rose.

Wilbur holds out his hand. Schlatt closes the door.

The Water Rose.

Wilbur leaves. Schlatt stays.

And the Water Keeps Rising.


	2. Rebuild Me, Better Than Before (What Was Lost?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> death, respawn and the wind

Wilbur remembered his first death. It hadn’t been to rising waters, or raging winds or a shove from behind. It was before any of those things, during their year of quiet. It had been simple, a creeper he hadn’t managed to avoid before it exploded. It’s almost funny how simple it was, just a creeper within blast range, looking back but it wasn’t funny at the time. He remembered the noise first, the low hum rising in the air until the inevitable explosion. The noise was loud and jarring and awful. The heat was next, searing his skin, its light blinding. Then came the pain. The burns on his skin scraping against the ground, his tears dripping into open wounds, the grip of Schlatt on his arm as the world faded away like an unnatural sleep (or the most natural of them all) for the first time (but not the last). 

But more than that, Wilbur remembered his first respawn. His body being knit back together, the magic mending his mind along with it. The excruciating pain of cells and skin and bones being made and manipulated and put in place. “It wasn’t supposed to hurt,” his first thought had been, it never hurts in the story books.” Nothing ever hurts in the story books. But as he kept dying and respawning and as it kept hurting and hurting and hurting, he thought “Maybe the books are wrong.” And the Wind seemed to giggle and laugh and ruffle his hair at the thought, almost as if in praise. The books must be wrong, for death kept hurting and life kept hurting and everything kept hurting so they must be. Merely fairytales and fables, for life does not end happily ever after, it turns out, after all. The only thing real is the lessons to be learned. Life isn’t fair and there is no one free from the reach of the G-ds. Those are the lessons to be learned, and they learned them well. 

_ In reality, respawns were not supposed to hurt. This was a special gift from the ones who put them here, and well...they would learn that eventually.  _

Wilbur felt it when Schlatt died the first time. It was long before the floods, before the leave taking, before the winds turned against them. It hadn’t hurt, per se, but it shocked him to his core. He felt something snap in him, a warmth go out, if just for a moment before reignition. Something that had always been there had broken and it healed but it was never quite the same. The chains around their wrists had vibrated, an uncomfortable sensation, dulled by the ache in his chest. They seemed even tighter than before, death not loosening their grip. The world seemed to stutter as one half of the twin heartbeats stopped. For a second, for just a mere moment, the wind and tides and sky stilled. The world stopped, as if in mourning of the death it just witnessed. But what was it mourning? The death of the boy or his innocence?

It took barely any time at all for Schlatt to respawn but for Wilbur it felt like an eternity. His heart beating alone was strange and foreign and uncomfortable. He never wanted to feel it again. ( _ he would not get his wish. In fact he would feel it over and over and over) _ . No wonder Schlatt clung to him so long after his own first demise. When Schlatt returned he clung to him too. No quips or jokes fell from his horned fellows mouth as they sat embraced. Sitting in the mud, wind ruffling their hair, bodies flush together in a hug, Wilbur's head tucked in the crook of Schlatts neck, tears soaking into his sweater clad shoulder. He understood too much how it felt to tease him for it. To be half empty and then whole again. To be broken and repaired and not able to tell if any pieces were left behind, even as you held your other half in your hands. Maybe this is when they started to fracture, to no long fit together. Or maybe it was a thousand deaths later. Who knows? Only the wind can tell. And the wind spills no secrets to those who cannot hear it and who it does not wish to reach. 

Death was a strange concept to the boys. It wasn’t talked about much in the few books they had. The winds never whispered much about it ( _ not yet _ ) and the world had not yet turned against them, death lurking in every cave, crevice and creek. All they knew was the natural decay, the withering of grass and the slaying of animals by other animals, the cycle of predator and prey. It is the way of the world, the weak and weary falling to the strong and bold. Two groups. Two boys. Funny how that worked out, isn’t it? The wind would agree, its laughter winding through the trees and weaving through the rivers and rustling the hair of its two favorite toys. 

Death wouldn’t be strange for long. Not for these two. Soon it’d be as familiar a friend as the wind on their cheeks and each other's hand in their own. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...its been awhile for this story huh?   
> so sorry about the wait, but this chapter just would not come out, and i had a lot of school stuff to deal with (senior year is a little rough sometimes lol. Not to mention my writing inspiration seemed to want to write different things haha. Including a main story fic for this au, which if you haven't read you should check you (and nic's main story fic too, its amazing!)   
> nevertheless, sorry for the wait, but don't worry the next chapter is already have finished, so it shouldn't be long.
> 
> join the writers block discord:  
> https://discord.gg/vcJssPMcyQ


	3. When All We Know is Gone, Will You Still Be With Me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new world, a new fate, a forgone conclusion 
> 
> or 
> 
> The Sky G-ds are angry and the boys grow tired of being played with

They were angry with them. He could feel it in his bones, in his chest, in his aching soul. Even if he couldn’t, it would have become abundantly clear soon enough. They woke up in a new world, still coughing up the feeling of phantom water clogging their lungs and the beginning of mistrust in their veins. The new world was a clean slate, no house, no water logged trees, no hungry ocean crawling up the shore. There was no storybook in a chest, no names carved in wood, no ground stained with blood. Just open land and blue sky dotted with rolling clouds. He held tight to Schlatts hand at the site and dared to breathe. Oh to just breathe, no water in his lungs or rain in his eyes! What a wonderful feeling it was. He should have known, those feelings never last long, as ephemeral as the good will of the winds. And end, the feeling surely did. The feeling of peace was fleeting but the fear they felt later would never truly fade.

The sky opened up, a gaping maw swallowing clouds and sunlight, and spit out a spark. A neat bundle of red and wired, lit and ready. The sky opened and tore up the ground with its gifts. Gone was rain and wind and water, now explosives and ash and  trinitrotoluene reigned instead. They had run, hands clasped tightly together, and flee as the ground disintegrates under foot. They tried to get supplies, tried to build a home (a mere mockery of their last one) but the world wouldn’t let them. Not a second to rest, not a minute to breath. Only time to run as the ground ruptured beneath their feet. 

Wilbur had gotten used to the taste of soot on his tongue, to the ringing of his ears, to the blue of the sky drowned out by gray. He hadn’t much of a choice in the matter. The chains around their wrists and ankles burn the skin and steam in the air, hissing hot and glowing from some unknown heat, some internal curse spurred by the anger by their invisible puppet masters. He could feel burns form underneath, rubbed raw and never fully healing, a sadistic piece of the worlds shittiest puzzle. He could tell by Schlatts wincing that his were the same. They used to submerge the burns in the water to soothe them when they could, but now any source of water they could find was quickly purified and drank or bottled for future use. In the torn up landscape they lived in, nothing could be taken for granted and a temporary reprieve from pain wasn’t important enough to justify the waste.  _ Doesn’t mean they didn’t long for it. _

They’d both died several times already, shrapnel given pockmarks and burn scars lingering on their skin as they slipped into the void over and over and over, before being knit back together all over again. This world was unforgiving. Gone were the terrifying but nearly painless deaths from the water world. There were burns that ebbed away at you until you crumbled, explosions so hot you were gone before the hissing fully stopped, pits in the ground so deep you had plenty of time to contemplate your fate before you met it. They’d died more here in the short months they were trapped then the lifetime they were in the Water world. 

They wondered when it would end. What would they have to do? Would it be when the ground was entirely craters? When there was no more food at all and the only deaths left were from the failure of their own bodies? Or was there a threshold for their deaths, a limit they had to hit?  _ Or maybe only one could live, the other left behind in an obliterated plane?  _ They both tried to forget the last option. The wind in the dead of night would never let them forget, whispering plans and ideas into their minds, weaving tapestries of futures of comfort if they only  _ let go of the other’s hand. _ Wilbur hummed loud enough to drown out the sound, hands twitching by his side like he wished to clasp them over his ears. Schlatt promised he wasn’t listening. His hand, the one sitting loose, not intertwined with Wilbur's, had its fingers crossed behind his back.

He wonders idylly when he started lying to Wilbur. He wonders when Wilbur stopped being able to tell. He wonders if he wants that fact to hurt or not. He’s hurting so much already that he can’t quite tell if it does.

Eventually this world will come to an end. They know it. One way or another. An end will come but what comes after that? Another world, more disasters, more pain and death? More scars to settle in their skin, more memories to burn into their brains, more hurt to settle in their soul. Would they just keep doing this forever? Two boys, born and bred for this. Two dolls on thick strings, made to play though whatever twisted tales their narrators created. Two souls, two lives, two stories with endings just out of site. Would the endings be happy, like the ones inked in story books long gone to flood waters and merciless tides? Or would they be tragic, like the mournful songs Wilbur had started to sing, lyrics learned from no other composer than himself and the wind? Not a soul can know. Not a soul can choose. No heroes, no villains, no foils can defy fate’s design. The wind writes the stories and the pages turn too fast to predict the ending before it comes. Who are they to try?

The world was more rubble than land at this point, the sky more ash than cloud, and the water had long gone cloudy and gray. The end was coming closer, one could tell. All they had to do was wait. Wait for the turning of the page. Wait for the next chapter. They both knew it. One accepted it blindly, choosing instead to hum and hold hands and ignore the hunger. The other stewed and thought and planned. He didn’t enjoy being a toy very much, and he didn’t want to be a pawn in their next story. If that meant being the villain as his last role then so be it. Better the victorious villain than a tortured hero.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! hope you enjoyed this chapter :-), and the much shorter wait from last time haha  
> I hope to get the next chapter up in the next two weeks, and that one is one of my favorites from the outline, so i hope you'll like it
> 
> join the writers block discord to see a community filled with awesome writers and readers and artists:  
> https://discord.gg/7sjuKcThSy


	4. They Say I've Got A Serpent's Tongue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief rest and a gathering storm
> 
> or 
> 
> Schlatt thinks and Wilbur sleeps.

Schlatt had never been one for story books. Not like Wilbur was at least. He adored those things, gingerly holding the leather covers, eagerly flipping through their pages like something new was waiting to be found from a story he read the day before. Schlatt didn’t see the appeal. Maybe at the beginning, maybe the first time the covers were parted he’d liked them. Maybe. It was so long ago, so many cycles, so many tides, so many pages turned, he’d long since forgotten. He’d always been more interested in the wind. In its whispered words, in the way it pushed and shoved and never yielded. More interested in the how and why and what's of their little worlds. In how the sun rose and fell and stars shined in between. In why the waters rose and the sky fell. In what he could do to stop it. In what he _had_ to do to stop it. Wilbur was never much of a listener, but that was okay. Where he failed, Schlatt excelled. He could hear the words in the wind where Wilbur blocked them out with song. Wilbur was a wonderful cook but a terrible hunter, agile musicians fingers excelling at sewing but not steady enough for carving, an adept gardener but horrible at keeping track of time. They were a perfect pair, two young boys, yellow and blue, shield and sword, music and mischief. Awoken on the same day, in the same moment, breaths in sync from the beginning. They fit together like two puzzle pieces, matched to make a picture neither could see. Well they _did_ fit together. Before the floods, before the winds, before the deaths. Before the worlds turned against them, before the sky fell, before their breaths stopped for the first time and when they started, were no longer quite in sync. A breath behind, a step too slow, a blink mistimed. No longer matching pieces, now more like shattered glass, more likely to cut on another and splinter further than slot back together.   
  
Wilbur could deny it, however he wanted, could spin words into tales, melodies into songs and yarn into sweaters all he liked. There was no masking the way they no longer fit together. They bickered more than not, separating for days at a time, taking turns sleeping under the guise of “watches” to avoid the vulnerability unconsciousness brought. Or at least that's why Schlatt did it. Maybe Wilbur was naïve enough to think otherwise. Must be nice, he mused, being so oblivious. Being able to smile freely, like there weren't chains dragging them down and g-ds in the wind and death around every corner. Like they couldn’t turn on each other, just like the wind had so long ago. Better than the paranoia he found gripping him, tugging on his chains and dripping over his eyes. He couldn’t recall when it started. When he started sleeping with his back to the wall. When he started watching, Wilbur prepare every meal. When he started keeping a sword under his thin blanket. When he stopped trusting. When he started doubting instead. This was a new world they were in.

Number three ( _Third times the charm_ ). Gone was the rising water, far away was the falling skies. No danger had yet made itself known (other than the boy next to him), but he wasn’t stupid enough to think it wouldn’t come. He knew it would. Nothing good ever lasts. It would start soon. He could almost feel it, a tugging in his gut, a pulling at his soul. The wind seemed to whisper more than ever these days, its rustling of the leaves closer to words than ever before, sentiment so tangible he could almost taste it. Something big was coming. Something exciting. Whatever the fuckers behind the wind found exciting, found amusing, sounded like something he wanted no part of. Not that he had much of a choice. He was just a marionette, a puppet with metal strings attached. The wind rustled outside, sending tree branches slamming against their windows and shoddily built doors. Across the room Wilbur whined and curled up tighter under his thin blanket (hand sown, its twin laid over Schlatt's own legs) shivering.

Something in his chest tightened at the sight and he wanted to look away but he didn’t. A voice in the back of his mind (sounded like the wind on its friendlier days) whispered that he might not be able to see him like this for much longer. He sat still and drank in the sight, despite how his legs itched to move over there and his fingers burned to bring comfort to the shivering boy. Ha, comfort. A sentiment they couldn’t afford. They’d spent many nights before the flood curled together, legs intertwined and fingers mingling, the other all the warmth they needed. They’d spent days in the obliterated world running side by side, hands never far from each other, even as the ground shook and fell to pieces around them. He can’t quite remember when they stopped. The last time they’d hugged, or held hands, or simply knocked shoulders against one another. He swore he didn’t miss it. _He did._   
  
The wind continued to rage. Wilbur continued to shiver. Schlatt continued to watch. He sharpened his sword while he waited. You never know when you’ll be in need of a sharp blade after all. He was getting rather good with them too. In the last world, in the brief reprieve before the world collapsed he’d managed to craft two twin swords. He’d intended to give on to Wilbur, but he’d already strung up a bow for himself and insisted he keep them both, and who was he to protest? He’d nicknamed himself ‘Blades’ in a moment of boisterous joy and Wilbur's answering peel of laughter made the ache in his arms the next morning worth it. Those swords were long gone, broken from explosions or shattered from a strike to a monster or even just gone in the travel between worlds. He had a new sword now, iron, shiny and sharp. He hadn’t used it yet. Not to slaughter an animal or slay a skeleton. Not one drop of blood had touched the blade yet, nor a strike to dull it. It felt like he was saving it for something special, though for what he didn’t know. It was just a feeling, like the pull in his gut and the tightness in his chest. He’d need the sword soon, he could tell. And looking at the boy across from him, he didn’t want to guess what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: the next chapter should be up in the next 2 weeks!  
> also me: posts it the next day  
> welp...i guess you can tell what chapter was my favorite to write so far haha  
> im seriously excited for the next chapter too, its a fun one ;-)
> 
> as always check out the other two fics in this series (another by the amazing nic is in the works) and be sure to kudos and comment if you enjoyed it (or if you just want to yell at me thats fine)


	5. What Happens to Toys After a Child Grows Bored?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Watching, Waiting, and a Choice Made. 
> 
> or
> 
> We get a look at the puppet masters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sky g-d pov go brrr

They were growing tired. Or maybe bored was a better world. Nothing could hold their gaze for very long. Even the shiniest toys lose their luster eventually. After all, what is the lifespan of a bug to a human? A human to a g-d? A tree to the world it's grounded on? Nothing of consequence. Mortals had grown boring long ago, so recently they’d chosen to meddle. Or meddle a bit more than usual. Make a few tests, control a few variables. See what became of it. And it was interesting, at first. To mold the two boys how they please, selecting traits, choosing features, hand picking the things they’d enjoy to see. A bit of greed for the goat, a dreamy disposition for the musician, a handful of high emotions for each and a bucket full of ambition for the both. Of course they didn’t make the two from scratch. No, they’d picked from an empty slate of sorts. Two mortal children, both barely alive for more than a blink in the lifespan of the immortals, plucked from whatever lives they were in and wiped clean. One an orphan from no notable background, a random selection. The other a much more specific choice. 

The boy's twin had initially drawn their eye, even from deep in the nether domain. One g-d in particular had already laid a claim on him by the time the wind blew close by. Not one of their domains, but one could practically taste the stench of the blessing off of him. Anyone with a sense of the divine anyhow. Maybe that's why they’d chosen the other. Get their hands on the long gone twin, see what the intrigue was. Or just take him so the others couldn’t. Who knows?  _ They were always greedy creatures of course. If someone had a toy they wanted, well they’d just have to get one better, wouldn’t they?  _ The two boys were interesting, at least as much as mortals could be. Clever and creative, the both of them, a little musician and amateur scammer. Such open canvases for them to explore, how could they possibly resist? And why would they want to resist it anyway? They had the world at their fingertips, the waters at the sway of their hands and the wind at their beck and call, a vessel for their voice.

So they did what they did best, and wrote a story. Wiped the minds of the boys, and all who knew them. It wasn’t much. A dying mother for the musician and a few other street kids for the scammer. Took their new little dolls and dressed them up how they’d like, adding features they thought would be interesting. For the musician: a way with the ocean and its waves, hungry and tumultuous. For the scammer: a connection with the molten, the ravenous magma and heat. For both; a silver tongue and a keen mind. No fun from playing with dull blades after all. They gave them what they deemed to be vital knowledge, some basic facts and of course, imbued them with reverence for those who placed them there, even if they didn’t quite know it. 

Then, they took them out of their stasis and plucked them in a world of their own special creation. Well every world was their own creation, this one was just a tad more special than the norm. A challenge for the two, a test with no answer. A brief time of peace, a mere blink of time to provide a base for their “experiment”, and then the fun began. 

The first world was for the musician, a swelling sea to swallow up the world. An easy challenge to start, with a long build up, the rising starting off slow and increasing steadily over the course of months. Its conclusion was almost disappointing. A few gasps and tears lost to the waves before the final death of the world. The leaving behind and the broken promises were fun at first, but watching their champions drown alone wasn’t as entertaining as they hoped. So they let the waters swallow them whole one last time and whipped the slate anew. 

The second, a reminder and reprimand. Molded to neither of the boys, instead a message to them both. Remember who was watching. Remember who made them. Remember who was in control. They’d tried the gentle hand, the rustling wind and story books. All they’d gotten was tears and quiet drowning. This world was much more fun. Many deaths, many injuries. The beginning of their next plan. They sent the wind to whisper in the scammers ear, whisper of fate and promises and plans. They cut off the food supply, riddled the water with ash, left more ground scorched and obliterated than untouched. Kept them awake. Kept them thirsty. Kept them hungry. The hungry ones always make the most fun choices. They didn’t leave the musicians mind untouched either, they gifted him with plenty. They flooded his mind with melody, with chords and lyrics and rhythms only in his mind. Gave him music only he could hear, until it was all he could hear. Music and explosions, what a lovely symphony striking a tune in his ears. Deafened him from his partner's cries and mutters and plans. Blinded him with visions of music, of all the beauty he could create. The beginnings of a temptation, of a plan for him. But the scammer grabbed the bait first, and they couldn’t complain about that. They had such fun things in mind for the musician anyway. 

But first, a final world for the two. A third, a completion of the trinity. All good things come in threes, and this no exception. A brand new stage for the end of the show. Or the end of the act at least, the show was far from fully over. The curtains could only close when they chose the actors' contracts to expire. And they were far from down with them. Not yet. So they made a plan. Molded a new world, a mirror of the first but with a delightful twist. 

The perfect world for their little scammer, the perfect platform for his debut performance in the new part he would play. Lava would rise and he’d hear its song. The wind and heat, a harmony so sweet, he’d understand, just for a moment, how his companion felt when he sang and the world sang with him. And all he had to do, was give a little push, just like they’d given him. And it would all be over as they promised. No more worlds for two. 

Something much more fun would be awaiting him instead. And the plans they had for the musician...oh, if they were mortals they might be impatient at the thought of waiting. But time was nothing to them, and waiting was a foreign concept, a mortal problem. All they had to do was pull some strings and enjoy the show. 

Time for the curtains to rise for the grand finale. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! the next one should be out in the next two weeks, and the final one right after. (i actually have the last chapter fully written already so i might double post to cross the finish line) 
> 
> this one was a fun one to write, a very different pov
> 
> please kudos and comment if you enjoyed! its a great motivator :-)


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